OITNB Actress Ageism Sexism Hollywood

This Orange Is The New Black Actress Is Not Here For Your Sexist, Ageist Casting Calls

Jamie Denbo, who plays Ginsberg on the Netflix hit show Orange is the New Black, recently took to social media to blast a casting call that she deemed both sexist and ageist. In a rant that started on Twitter and then migrated to Facebook where there are no character limits, Denbo blasted a Hollywood that not only continually casts much-younger actresses to play the love interests of older men, but that actively discriminates against older actresses to do so.

"I was just informed that at the age of 43, I am TOO OLD to play the wife of a 57 year old," the OITNB actress tweeted on Wednesday. "Oh, the characters also have an 18-year-old daughter. I am TOO OLD to be the mother of an 18 year-old," she continued. "...this fucker wants to be TV married to a 38-year-old -- TOPS."

Advertisement

I was just informed that at the age of 43, I am TOO OLD to play the wife of a 57 year old.

After Denbo had been taken aback by the attention her tweets received, she posted a longer message on Facebook, according to a screenshot acquired by Entertainment Tonight. In it, she said, "I deliberately chose to not publish a personal blog post or a longer piece about it (there IS one sitting on my desktop) because I didn't want to completely blackball myself as an actor."

She also said that "there are WAY more important things to rage about in the world right now besides obvious and regular accounts of sexism (and ageism) in Hollywood." However, she says that the interaction with the casting agent "gob smacked" her, and was a blow to her ego.

Denbo is not the first actress to call out sexism and ageism in Hollywood's casting practices. Liv Tyler once said that, at age 38, she was a "second-class citizen" in Hollywood. In 2006, actress Geena Davis founded the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media to fight Hollywood sexism. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend star Rachel Bloom recently took to Instagram to share particularly egregious calls she'd come across, including one seeking a woman “to play a variety of attractive girls” and another looking for simply "pretty faces."

Denbo ended her Facebook rant with "one little word of advice to the 'creators'" who might be reading: "Just make sure that whichever 30-something you cast is a SPECTACULAR actress, because don’t kid yourselves, she is gonna have to really work hard to make it look like she’s attracted to a 57-year-old."

Correction: An earlier verison of this article contained a photo of another actress, due to a misidentification on a photo wire service. It has been updated.